Monthly Archives: May 2010

And they are (not surprisingly) totally inarticulate. Cory Miller is very proud of his daughter.

For background see my last post.

I’d also encourage all parents to read my post about privacy. Our behaviors are seldom private any more, and I cannot even bother to comment about putting this in context. There is no context necessary.

My eleven year old daughter desperately wants to wear a bikini, and just this morning I explained to her (for the 800th time) that she would wear a tankini instead. A tankini shows a bit of belly, but essentially looks like a tank top and swim bottoms. I’d considered letting Jane wear a bikini this year. I figured she’d be so uncomfortable in it that she’d beg for a one piece, but the reality is that I can’t bring myself to sexualize my eleven year old daughter.

My job as her mother is to allow her age appropriate opportunities. Eleven is a great age, Jane should enjoy it.

Our kids attend a school where they wear uniforms each day. When discussing the uniform issue with a middle school educator he said, “I worry that girls put on clothing that they don’t really want to wear.” That resonated with me.

Here’s a video of seven year old girls dancing to the Beyonce Single Ladies song. These kids are clearly incredibly talented. The dancing is polished, and I’m sure the Laker Girls would be envious of more than a few moves. I just question the judgment of the parents. My daughter and most of her friends would not be allowed in that competition, I have a hard time imagining the parents who thought it was cute.

When is dancing too suggestive?

I have an easier time imagining Dita Von Teese wearing these outfits than a seven year old child.

I found myself very careful about the wording on this post, as I’m quite certain that there’s a ped0phil3 community that is searching for content just like this.

UPDATE: The video has been pulled due to copyright issues after it was viewed 2,000,000 times. Here is a link where you can see it.

I know at least one person will call me puritanical. I’m okay with that.

This just wouldn’t fly in my house, or in my friends’ houses.

UPDATE: The girls are actually eight and nine, per their parents.

UPDATE May 16: of course the video has resurfaced. It’s a fantasy to think that they’d get it pulled from every venue.

I brought my son to hang out with his Dad yesterday at about noon.

When I returned home from a great sushi dinner with Jane, Lolita and her kids, I saw my son sitting at the counter eating White Castle Hamburgers. Once my head stopped spinning I asked about the rest of the day. They had a great time together, and my son told me about their snacks throughout the day:

Bananas (good)
Muffins (not so good, these are essentially tiny cakes)
Hot dogs from the vendors at the ball park
Chips (I had the presence of mind to not ask which kind)
Chicken Tenders, again from the ball park vendors

There might have been some doughnut holes in there too, as well as some chocolate, but they only told me about the “meals” they managed to have in a six hour window.

I want to marry this car. The end.

Okay, well maybe you’re expecting a more thoughtful review. What a demanding group you are.

The Mercury Milan is the Ford Fusion’s hot cousin. I was one of the lucky few to drive the Fusion Hybrid last year, and during this most recent round of car shopping it was my first choice.

The Milan Hybrid is a stunning car at a great price. The one I drove for this past week had an MSRP of $33,570.

This is not a performance car, but for Los Angeles traffic (ugh) you don’t really need it. With a sturdy 2.5L Duratec® 16-valve I-4 engine, the Milan faked me out. I felt like I had plenty of power getting onto the freeway (yes I drove a few times at night just to be sure it could move), and the transitions from electric engine to gasoline and back again were smooth. I’ve now driven almost every hybrid on the market (forgive me BMW if I don’t take your 19MPG hybrid seriously enough to test drive it) and the Mercury has the smoothest transition of all.

I just leased a Lexus hs250 hybrid, and I feel like this is the perfect car review for me. I’m really comparing apples to apples here. The Mercury in my driveway is $3,450 more than the Lexus, and they share some of the same fantastic features.

With both the Lexus and with the Mercury I got 34 miles a gallon after a week of regular driving. This pleases me. I am a terrible driver with a lead foot. Were I to pay better attention the mileage would be better as it was when I drove the Ford Fusion Hybrid last year and averaged closer to 40 MPG. If I’m busy loving the planet, this is the right car for the job.

The Mercury Milan has good but imperfect crash ratings. The front impact for driver and passenger received five out of five possible stars. Front seat side crash ratings were perfect with five stars, and the side rear seat as well as the rollover ratings received just four out of five stars. Good, but I’d like to see five stars in the back seat, us moms want to protect our kids.

I have to say the Mercury Milan pleases me for a number of reasons. I’m going to give you a list and just encourage you to drive one at your local dealer:

• Although the interior leather has cream colored panels, the floors and backs of the seats are black. This is good when you have kids.
• Nice pickup, not speed racer, but this isn’t a wimpy car
• 175 horsepower and 172 lb.-ft. of torque
• Wears nicely. The car I drove had almost 11,000 miles on it. Granted it’s part of a well maintained fleet, but it still impressed me.
• Tight handling. I like this, remember me, leadfoot?
• SYNC I love the technology that Ford uses. It took me just a few short minutes to figure out the navigation, to connect my bluetooth and to be on my way. The UI (user interface) is smart.
• Trunk space: Enough for a dead body and a shovel. Go ahead, judge me.

I happen to love Mercury, so I hopped in the car with a bias. Before Jane I had a third generation Mercury Capri which was red, convertible and MINE. I think of Mercury as a premium brand. I don’t necessarily think “luxury brand” but I know some folks do.

My husband did not love this car. He liked it, and agreed that it’s a lot better than the Lexus, but when I said, “don’t you love it?” His response was, “it drives like an Enterprise rent a a car.” To be perfectly fair, the only reason I’m not currently driving this car full time is because it doesn’t lease out well. I love cars, and I love new cars, so I’ve resigned myself to leasing. I’m not sure if there isn’t a good lease rate because Ford is notoriously conservative (no bailout for Ford) or if it’s because the residual value is low.

If I were the type to buy a car, this or the Ford Fusion Hybrid would have been my first choice. I’m just not that type.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I love the car, he does not. Part of me thinks he’s just jealous, you know, since I want to marry it and all.

Remember when Jane turned eleven and got a cell phone? My brother called me and was like, “you should get her an unlimited text plan because our girls ran up huge texting bills, and Mom loves me best.” (that is EXACTLY what he said).

In keeping with my general rule of never listening to my brother, I bought Jane the cell phone with no additional text plan. I figured it would run me a few dollars a month when she texted her friends. The first cell phone bill included $123 in texting. That is not a typo.

Well, thank goodness for AT&T, I called and explained the situation. They assured me that my brother was still a dummy and that Mom still loves me best, and then they switched me to an unlimited text plan and backdated it. I recovered from my shock, both at the cost of texting, and at the speed of Jane’s fingers, and went on my merry way.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I opened up the cell phone bill and there were $192 in extra fees that made NO SENSE to me whatsoever.

After a 45 minute phone call to AT&T we were able to unwind the charges, and figure out the source of the charges. Twilight. Twilight apps, games and something called the “News Prediction Game” came together $9.99 at a time to reach almost two hundred dollars.

For the record, I did not punish Jane. I did not so much as take her phone away for a day. I did teach her a little bit about how companies try to trick you into entering your phone number on their sites. I’m pretty sure she’ll be savvier next time, but I know a good vampire app is hard for a tween to resist.

We are a texting family.

As you might recall, Jane got a cellphone for her 11th birthday, and all she really wanted was a QWERTY keyboard. She wanted bright colors too, but mostly she wanted to type. She types quickly, and I find that texting is what works best for our family.

My friend Amy had warned me that texting would be where we were headed, she explained to me that kids didn’t want to stop doing whatever activity they are engaged in to talk to their moms. She also explained to me that kids would reply to text messages because they are short. Naturally, Amy was right.

I don’t often ask Jane to make certain to answer her phone. At this  moment in time that would be a setup for failure. For some reason it’s just too much for her, but returning a text message is not.

What about you?